European Linkage of Initiative from Science to Action in Health

ongoing

The ELISAH project aims to reduce the burden of breast cancer by acting on modifiable risk factors and involving NGOs and patient groups. We share with many other researchers the idea that the best way to implement prevention is by developing strategies that integrate structural interventions and individual health promotion and that take into account the strong interrelationships between risk factors. For this reason we will study together environmental pollution, the built environment, exposure to unhealthy nutrition, lack of physical activity, and alcohol and tobacco use. To be able to propose new policies and interventions, and taking into account that it is well recognised by the scientific community that a one-size-fits-all strategy for prevention will not succeed, the ELISAH project was designed as a ‘multi-directional and holistic’ initiative building up a multidisciplinary working group involving epidemiologists, clinicians, statisticians, public health professionals, psychologists, physicists and engineers. In line with Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan and the EU Mission on Cancer, the ELISAH project addresses the entire cancer control continuum, with a particular focus on vulnerable categories. It is composed of two parts. The first is a Europe-wide gap analysis of national cancer plans, breast cancer rates and risk factor distribution, followed by a ‘high-definition’ gap analysis to assess the currently unknown distribution of some important risk factors in persons with a diagnosis of breast cancer. The second part is dedicated to innovative interventions and actions that will be easily replicable in all European countries to overcome the current limits in breast cancer prevention: a web-based intervention to stimulate lifestyle changes, an intervention to increase risk factor awareness and breast cancer screening participation in internally displaced people in Ukraine, and an ‘urban’ gap analysis and action for the built environment in three European towns.